


Interview

by Stayawhile



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-24
Updated: 2011-07-24
Packaged: 2017-10-21 17:35:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/227798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stayawhile/pseuds/Stayawhile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lord Mark needs to hire a new assistant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interview

Interview

 

Kareen picked up the last roll from the breadbasket. “You want…?”

“What? Oh, no, please. I’ve had three.” Mark smiled across the breakfast table at his wife, still charmingly disheveled in a pink robe.

“Well, maple twists are your favorite, so I figured I’d ask.” She took a bite. “So, what’s on the schedule for today? Lots of meetings?”

Mark tapped his wrist-chrono. A new model, just in from Beta Colony and not yet on the market, it projected a small holo of his day’s schedule, floating in midair above the crumbs on his plate. “Not too bad. I’m interviewing a couple of candidates for Jenna’s job, but…looks like the Vorvayne group has rescheduled. I should be home early. How about you?”

“Ekaterin’s coming over, we’re heading to the med center to pay the baby a visit, and then she’s going to help me shop for tiny clothes. Three weeks! I don’t feel ready, Mark, do you?” He noticed a little anxiety creeping into her smile, and reached out to take hand in his.

“My lovely wife, you are going to make a most excellent mother. I have no doubt of that. For one thing, you have a most excellent mother yourself, and a mother-in-law, and a team of sisters to swoop down and assist.” She grinned.

“And you,” she said, “will be a most excellent father.” Mark had his doubts about that, but he kept those to himself. If a Jacksonian clone could be a brother, a son, and a husband—why not a father as well?

 

 

The comconsole chirped. “Lord Mark? Your next appointment is here. Her resume should be in your in-basket. Her name’s Lilac Nuovira.”

Lord Mark Pierre Vorkosigan set aside the cashflow report he had been reviewing. Why did that name sound familiar? “Thanks, Jenna. Send her in.” He swiveled in his custom-made chair. The office was large and lavish, with dark wooden furniture made of hardwoods from the Vorkosigan forests, tailored to his unique proportions. This fancy office had been a strategic move at first—looking successful gave him a negotiating edge—but the success had become genuine, and he had even started to believe he deserved it.

He turned back to his comconsole and pressed a few buttons; it spit out a flimsy in response. Hiring a new executive assistant was easy, but finding someone who could meet his needs as well as Jenna was proving harder. “Surround yourself with the smartest people you can find,” Miles had advised him nine years ago, when he had started hiring employees. Jenna had not only a sharp eye for numbers, but the tact to guide him through Barrayaran business customs and help him sidestep invisible landmines. She had never seemed bothered by his unusual origins, and if she had ambition equal to her strategic brilliance, who was he to stand in her way? The Deal was that he would invest in her new business, and she would stay until he found her replacement.

A young woman entered the office. Beautiful, darkhaired, Eurasian features. Mark’s practiced, affable smile froze as he recognized the face.

Lilly Durona, the body he had stolen back from Baronne Bharaputra, stood before him.

“Good morning, Lord Mark. It’s a pleasure to meet you again.” She was poised, but he detected a small tremble at the edges of her voice, which calmed him enough to remember the appropriate social routine.

“And you. Please, have a seat.” He gestured her to the more comfortable of the two guest chairs (the other one was reserved for potentially hostile negotiations) and she sat. They looked at one another for a long moment.

“Lord Mark,” she began. “I’m here for two reasons. First and foremost, I really want this job. I’m highly qualified, and I think I can be a valuable asset to MPVK Enterprises.”

Mark took this excuse to scan the resume in his hand. _Focus on business, Mark, that’s what you’re good at._ “Well, uh, Lilac…your academic record is impressive. I see you have had several promotions at your current job within a very short period…in fact, it seems to me that this position would be a lateral move, rather than a step up, career-wise. Are you leaving Vorkalloner for a specific reason we can discuss?” _Business. Focus. Live in the present._

Lilac Nuovira clasped her hands and leaned forward in her chair. “I love working at Vorkalloner. This is the only other job I would even consider applying for.” He waited, not sure what to say. “I guess…that brings me to my second reason.”

 _This is about to get personal,_ Mark realized, nerves sparking. _What do I say?_ “I’m sorry,” he began. “I recognized you when you came in. You’re…originally from Jackson’s Whole, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m one of the clones you rescued.”

The old sour mix of denial and guilt washed through him. Deep down, he knew it was Miles who had really done the rescuing, giving his life in the process. He had bought it back at great cost, but the original mission had been an utter disaster. Why did she want to see him now? There had been no contact for years.

Haltingly, he started. “I’m sorry. I wondered if it was the right thing, not keeping in touch with you and the other—the others. But you needed to build new lives.” He gestured toward her with the resume. “It looks like you’ve succeeded at that.”

“Thank you. And please, don’t apologize,” Lilac replied. “I know you supported us, paid for our educations. We figured out who “Father Frost” was pretty fast.” She looked down at her hands. “I’m sorry it took me so long to come to you. I’ve been thinking about it for years, really, wanting to meet you and…your brother. The job listing decided it.”

She paused. Mark remembered how eagerly he had followed the clones’ progress at first, how he had worried over their grades, their minor setbacks. It was his mother who had forbidden Ilyan to continue turning over ImpSec’s reports on the clones, and had finally convinced him to follow his Betan therapists’ advice and let go. “They’re not yours, Mark,” Lady Cordelia had said gently. “They belong to themselves. That’s the gift you gave them, the same way you gave it to yourself. Now they have to do what they will with it, just as you do. Trust them.” He had hoped, most of all, that the clones had stuck together, had been able to lean on one another as they adjusted to their strange new Barrayaran lives. And now, seeing one of them again, he couldn’t help being curious.

“Can you tell me…are you in touch with the others?”

“Oh, yes!” Lilac smiled. “We’ve all got new names, of course, but privately we refer to ourselves as the Jackson family. It’s kind of an in-joke. Everybody’s doing well…well, some better than others, but I guess that’s true in any family. A couple of the boys are in the Imperial Military, and there’s a whole branch of the family in Vorkosigan’s District, running a lumber business. We…understand each other. And family’s so important on Barrayar—it helps to have sisters and brothers just like anybody else.”

“Um, what about Maree? Is she…?” A sharp remnant shard of that old guilt twisted inside him.

“Maree’s a nurse. She’s working at a clinic out the middle of nowhere, up in the mountains. I couldn’t live there, too low-tech for me, but she loves it.” She looked into his eyes.

“There’s kind of a split, in the family,” she continued after a pause. “Some of us just want to forget the past, where we came from. Not talk about it or think about it. I can understand that…knowing you were created the way we were, by people who wanted our bodies and were planning to throw us away. It’s ugly. And a lot of Barrayarans are prejudiced against clones. Like we’re not really real people. One of my sisters was going to get married, and she decided to tell her fiancé about it. Turned out to be a big mistake.”

“I know what you mean,” Mark offered. “Because my brother is so prominent, I couldn’t keep it a secret, that I’m a clone. I never know why people don’t like me, if it’s because of me, or my family, or how I was made. Sometimes it’s just business.”

“Well, they should like you,” said Lilac, her tone annoyed. “They should look up to you.”

Mark let out a brief, involuntary snort. Lilac blushed at her phrasing. “You know what I mean! And please…wait. I’m serious. Once I got over….what I was raised to be, I’ve thought of you as my hero.” Mark sat still, quietly stunned. He remembered wanting to be a hero, ten years ago when he’d stolen the Dendarii for that disastrous mission. He though he had gotten over it.

“You gave us our futures. Nobody else even would have tried. And I keep up with the business news, I know your company’s been funding the Durona Group’s work on life-extension technologies. That’s the real reason I want to work here. I want to be part of that.” Her face was flushed, the rising tone of her voice signaling a contained passion.

Mark laughed. “You already are, in a way. Do you know who you were cloned from?”

Lilac’s face was puzzled. “Baronne Bharaputra.”

“She was a clone, too. There’s a whole family of clones who look like you. Brilliant, all of them. They went into medicine. Left Jackson’s Whole about the same time you did.” Oh, this was a moment to savor. Along with that word. Hero.

“You mean the Duronas?” Mark nodded. Lilac took in a deep breath, and let it out, shaking her head. “Wow. Just, wow.” She paused. “I’ve read about them. I thought—I thought my genes came from a murderous, selfish bitch. But the Duronas are…”

Mark suddenly realized that her laughter had turned to sobs. Panic rose; he had thought it would make her happy! He pulled a linen handkerchief from his pocket (still folded, therefore still clean, he thought desperately) and walked around the desk to hand it to her. His hand hovered above her shoulder for a moment, and then he gave her an awkward pat.

She raised her face to look at him. Despite her reddened nose, she was still beautiful. “Thank you. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”

Not unhappy, Mark realized. Just overwhelmed, emotionally. “It’s a clone thing,” he said gently. “Needing to know who you were made from, what they’re like, because on a genetic level, that’s who you are. Getting to know my brother was a series of revelations. The most important one being, he’s not me and I’m not him.”

She nodded. “I need to thank him too. He talked me into coming with you. I didn’t want to be saved, but he managed to convince me.”

Mark returned to his chair on the other side of the desk. He always felt safe there. “I think Miles can talk anyone into anything. One of his many talents. He’s not easy to live up to, but it’s better to have a progenitor you can respect.” He paused.

“Let me tell you a little about the Duronas. There are a lot of them, both male and female, and they’re all brilliant, independent, strong people. Maybe someday you can meet them.”

“I’d like that,” Lilac said, “if they would.” She looked down. “Maybe not right away.”

Mark had been an adult before he had learned empathy, or compassion, but he felt both for the young woman in front of him, remembering his terror of meeting Count and Countess Vorkosigan.

“Well,” he said gently, “my assistant often travels with me on business, and I usually make a visit to Escobar every couple of months.”

“You mean I’ve got the job?” This was a real smile, a wide grin that lit up her face.

“I’ll have to call your references, but you are a very strong candidate. I know how smart you are and how much you’re capable of. I think we could work together.”

Lilac stood. “Lord Mark,” she said, “I don’t know how to thank you. For everything.”

“Lilac Nuovira,” he replied, “trust me, you already have.”

 

To Mark’s surprise, it was Miles who opened the front door to his house, sweeping a formal bow. “Won’t you come in?”

“Miles! I didn’t know you were coming over. What’s up?” He unthinkingly stepped up on the first stair, to give Kareen his ritual welcome-home kiss, and as if in response she appeared around from the side door. He wrapped her in his arms, while Miles looked on with an approving smirk.

“Our ladies spent the afternoon together, buying the finest baby merchandise in all of Vorbarr Sultana, and they decided to top off this orgy of acquisition with a family dinner.” Mark hopped down, and with an arm around Kareen’s waist, they proceeded into the main room.

“They had the right idea. It’s been a couple of weeks. We should do this more often,” said Mark.

Ekaterin laughed. “It gets a little more complicated once you have children. As you’re about to find out. But I agree with you, we should.”

Mark took the drink Kareen offered, and half-listened to the flow of conversation, which started from the impending birth and eventually launched Miles on an anecdote from his own childhood, some ridiculous scrape he had dragged Gregor and Elena into. There had been a time when such stories had made him uncomfortable, even angry. But he was slowly learning not to let the difference between Miles’ youth and his own become a barrier between them, to see Miles as something other than a rival who would always outshine him. The Black Gang slept now, most of the time, patrolling only his dreams.

He could not, would never forget where he came from. From a tissue sample stolen from the small, energetic man whose grey eyes matched his own. From Bharaputra Laboratories, and the twisted, revenge-obsessed mind of an aging Komarran revolutionary.

He could not change where he had come from, only where he was going and what he did along the way. He had remade not only his own life, but fifty others. He had created a marriage, a husband, a father, a fortune, and a genuine family from the counterfeit coin of Jackson’s Whole.

Lilac’s words echoed in his head, and something clicked into place, as if her visit was the final sequence in a keypad code that unlocked a secret door.

 _Self-respect. So that’s what it this is._

 _I think I’m getting used to it._


End file.
